Sci-Fi Group Book Club discussion

This is the discussion thread for the second book of the month, or group read, for January. Please remember to use the spoiler tags where necessary. The other two group read topics for this month (Eon and Armor) can be found here and here, respectively.

OK, so I completed this read last week and it certainly held my attention. But I thought it should have been longer. More character development, more back story on the early beginnings of the colony and how the immortals came to fashion themselves after Hindu gods.

I always thought Zelazny worked better at short length. Epic as his Amber series was, it got a little choppy as he lost interest in characters and played out his famous twists and turns over multiple books.
Lord of Light has a sparse feeling to it, like someone is breathlessly telling you a fantastic tale, but doesn't quite have time to fill in all the details. It leaves you wanting more (especially at the end!) .. but I felt he intended it exactly that way. Modern books seem bloated and overfilled in contrast to this ... authors just packing in every treat that is available in the sweet shops of their imagination .. Roger worked in a different era. An even better example of his talent is CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS .. that does the same sort of thing for Egyptian Mythology as Lord of Light does for Hindu.
If a modern author was to tackle it ... 500 pages per book .. and probably 4 books (first one 99p ..) Roger tackles in all in a book that would now be regarded as a novella. Not a single word is wasted though. It is like Sushi fiction .. each tiny mouthful is beautifully crafted, tastes amazing ... more like poetry than prose. You could write 20 books based on the Immortals and Gods who stride through that small book. Roger was a fierce talent, but sadly never got the acclaim and popularity of his peers.

Neil wrote: "I always thought Zelazny worked better at short length. Epic as his Amber series was, it got a little choppy as he lost interest in characters and played out his famous twists and turns over multip..."
I agree, it was a compelling narrative and actually the first I have read of this author. So a good introduction to a writer I will return to. There were so many big ideas and well, what can I say, I like big books!

My first Zelazny was Jack of Shadows, which is another slim volume, but well worth your time and effort. I bought it for my daughter a few years back (she was trying to kick the supernatural romance habit ..) as an excellent introduction to well-written fantasy (that isn't all LOTR derivative Elves and Hobbit travelogue) and she was hooked.
Good luck with your next one! I like big books as well, but so few are worthy of their run length these days. Can't help feeling that a decent editor and some self-discipline from the writers would be a good thing for the reading public as a whole.